National grassroots organisation Swing Left is attempting to overhaul the Democratic Party’s ground game with 'deep canvassing' ahead of November’s midterm elections. The initiative, part of the Ground Truth campaign, seeks to address what Swing Left describes as a broken voter contact model that is too transactional, too last minute, and reliant on outdated technology.
Last weekend, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Congressman Pat Ryan joined more than a hundred volunteers for a voter-listening canvass in Kingston, New York. Unlike traditional canvassing that targets reliable supporters just weeks before an election, volunteers are hitting the streets well ahead of the midterms, knocking on every door and speaking to anyone they encounter.
Yasmin Radjy, Swing Left’s executive director and a former Obama campaign field organiser, criticised the party’s stagnation: 'We have not substantively evolved as a party since the 2008 Obama campaign model. We are just iterating on the edges of that model.' She added that campaigns reach out to voters 'consistently too late, consistently too transactional, and sitting atop some outdated technology'.
Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement: 'The conversations this kind of canvassing enables are transformative not only for the person opening the door, but also for the canvasser. We’re in a moment where engaging with genuine curiosity and openness feels almost countercultural.'
Responses in Kingston revealed voter frustrations: one resident described the system as 'rigged against working people', while another said voters often feel they are choosing the 'lesser of two evils'. A Democratic-leaning resident said she 'tries not to think about politics', and a Republican-leaning mother expressed a desire for more bipartisanship.
A recent NBC News poll found that only 30% of voters view the Democratic Party positively, compared with 52% viewing it negatively. Swing Left, which launched after Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory, aims to change this by rebuilding trust through genuine, open-ended conversations analysed with the help of AI.
